I appreciate that there are a number of topics on picking the right video card. I've read them but I haven't found one that quite answers this question.

I have an EPIA MII12000 with 1 analog and 1 DVB-S card.
I'm currently playing only MPEG2 streams, with the EPIA's CLE266 accelerating the MPEG2 playback.

In NZ, DVB-T (terrestrial) HD content using MPEG 4/H.264 will be starting soon, and I hope to make use of it. However my PVR, based on an EPIA MII12000, doesn't cut it because:
a) the onboard chips only accelerate MPEG2.
b) The CPU is not powerful enough to render MPEG4 at 720p (let alone anything higher). I tried it and its not even close.
c) there is only SVideo out, which is limited to SD.


I have two questions:

a) will an MII 12000 EPIA mobo with a (say) GEForce 6200A (PCI only) be able to play 720p? That is, does 6200 accelerate MPG4/H.264 and remove almost all load from the CPU? Has anyone actually tried that on a lowely EPIA mobo?

b) I can't see any cards that have component out (which is what my receiver and TV require) and PCI (mobo only has PCI). But I understand that DVI-A (analog) is equivalent to component and only requires a cable to convert. Is that true? If so, does the 6200 output DVI-I (integrated/both) or just DVI-D?

Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Paul.

Sadly there's no XvMC equivalent for MPEG4 acceleration that I'm aware of, and I kind of suspect that the EPIA MII12000 maybe a bit short on horsepower for anything beyond SDTV definition. (1.2Ghz core and a 133Mhz FSB) I'm looking at a review right now that shows DVD playback using 65-75% of the CPU on one, so the ~3x step-up going from NTSC or PAL to the 0.92 million pixels of 720p is looking kind of tough.

Darn!

So <shout> has anyone figured out a way to get an EPIA box to do HD? </shout>

I really like the power consumption/quietness/form factor of my PVR,
and I'd hate to have to build another one.

Cheers.
Paul.

There are Via boards that will do HD. Look for one with a Unichrome Pro. You should note however not all Unichrome Pro will do HD. You should be safe with a CN400, I'd suggest asking on the Openchrome mailing list if you have further questions.

I have been trying to get HD working on my VIA MII10000 with a Nvidia GX6200, and not had much luck. The picture (From HDHomerun) is jerky and the CPU is running at about 100% the whole time.

In an effort to get this working I just bought a Jetway VIA C7 2.0GHz (J7F5M2G-VHE) which uses the CX700M and has a HDMI output

Graphic Interface:
VIA UniChrome Pro II Intergrated Graphics Processor
- AGP 8x Performance
- 200 Mhz 128-bit dedicated 2D/3D engines
- Support for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9

The only problem is that the Openchrome driver doesn't seem to support MPEG-4 acceleration yet. I hope that this will arrive soon.

It sounds like what you're looking for though.

Victor